Chapter 89: Thunder Bird

Thank you [MonsterGirlHarem] for your gift – A Dragon

Thank you [UpUpDowndown] for your gift – A Car

Thank you [DurzaShade] for your gift – A Chair

Thank you [The_Book_Master] for your gift – A Capsule

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The next morning, the survey team led by Meira left Silver Moon for the cotton-growing region she had chosen to the southwest. Before they had gone far into the valley, however, their communications device picked up a distress signal from an old outpost near the edge of the area.

Only a small group of Succubus and civilians remained there, struggling to hold on. Their presence was nowhere near enough to say the cotton-growing region had been reclaimed. After confirming the situation, Meira left the vehicle and rushed ahead, while Erik and Elowen followed in an armored vehicle forced to move slowly along the damaged road.

By the time Meira arrived, the alarm had been sounding for nearly twenty minutes.

A broad valley between two low mountain ranges had all but become a battlefield. Fields once used to grow cotton stretched to the foot of the mountains, but years of neglect had left them overgrown with weeds nearly waist-high. The few white cotton bolls still visible were scattered among blood and fragments of broken armor, making the scene even more chaotic.

Less than half the defensive line around the outpost remained. A female Succubus in dark blue armor held a shield in front of herself with both hands, struggling against a monster over three meters tall as it repeatedly hammered its unnaturally long arms against her defenses.

The thing before her scarcely resembled a normal living creature. Its entire body appeared to be made of gray-black matter, as though flesh, metal, and shadow had been forcibly mixed together. White armor plates grew at odd angles from its shoulders and spine, while its head was nothing more than a smooth mask with a black slit running from top to bottom.

Whenever it moved, faint distortions appeared in the air around it, accompanied by a crackling buzz like a damaged recording playing on a loop.

The captain gritted her teeth, held her shield steady, and shouted, "Hold it!"

Three Succubus behind her immediately raised their bows. Their magic arrows struck almost simultaneously, piercing the monster’s chest. One hit the reddish-purple core buried beneath its armor, making its body falter, but within seconds the black matter around the wound began crawling back together.

"It’s not dead! Keep aiming for the core!"

The captain shouted as she leaned aside to avoid a sweeping arm.

Boom!

The wall behind her caved in.

Along another section of the defensive line, more than ten smaller monsters crawled over the bodies of their own kind. Some ran on four legs, though their front limbs were nearly twice as long as the others. Others were merely black masses floating in midair, surrounded by dozens of rotating white bones. From time to time, they released waves that made the ears of anyone nearby ring.

One Succubus had barely split an enemy in two when its upper body planted both hands on the ground and kept crawling toward her. Gritting her teeth, she drove her longsword into the exposed reddish-purple core with both hands.

"Die!"

The light inside the core went out. Only then did the monster’s body break into black fragments and disappear.

But there were still far too many of them.

The Succubus leaned on her sword, panting. As she watched more dark shapes advance beyond the defensive line, her face grew paler. Just then, someone ran up from behind her and shouted before she had even come to a stop.

"Captain, the northern line has fallen!"

The captain spun around.

"Where are the men from the command area?"

The messenger lowered her head without answering. Her expression said enough.

The captain clenched her teeth.

"They’re all gone?"

"Mm."

"When?"

"Before the second wave."

A dry laugh escaped the captain’s lips.

The men responsible for strengthening several of the outpost’s combat teams had withdrawn before the second wave of monsters reached them. No one called it running away. The official order said they had returned to the safe zone to preserve essential personnel, but every Succubus still there understood what that meant.

They had lost their enhancements. Their supplies had nearly been cut off. Most of their equipment had been in use for too long, and more people on the outer line were being wounded by the minute.

The captain looked at the injured being dragged inside and issued an order through gritted teeth.

"Fall back to the second line."

The woman beside her went pale.

"The second line is just a wooden wall."

"Then we use it."

"But—"

"It’s still a wall."

Before she could say more, the ground beneath her feet suddenly trembled.

At first, the vibration was faint. Within seconds, however, small stones began bouncing off the ground. Deep, muffled impacts rolled through the valley at a steady rhythm, as though something immensely heavy were slowly walking toward them.

Every Succubus still able to fight turned to look.

At the far end of the field, a colossal dark shape emerged from the dust. Someone instinctively took a step back.

"What the hell is that...?"

The creature was almost as large as a moving hill. Its six legs drove into the earth like enormous stone pillars, each step leaving a deep crater. Its body was covered in uneven black armor plates, with reddish-purple light streaming through the gaps like blood through veins.

Most frightening of all was its head. It had no eyes or mouth, only a ring of white bone more than ten meters across, hollow at the center. Within that opening, an enormous reddish-purple core pulsed rhythmically. Each time it flared, the surrounding air warped, and the crackling sounds from hundreds of monsters across the battlefield fell into sync, as though they were all answering the core’s heartbeat.

The captain immediately checked the magic detector in her hand. Its display flashed wildly several times, then shut off.

"It can’t measure it..."

The woman beside her looked at the monster and gave a bitter smile.

"Are we still supposed to fight?"

No one answered.

The giant creature continued forward. One of its front legs came down on a defensive tower in its path. The stone structure, more than ten meters tall, shattered as though it were made of dirt. Some of the Succubus inside did not even have time to escape.

"Fall back!"

The cry rang across the defensive line, but the monster had already raised another leg. Its vast shadow fell over the last defensive position.

The captain looked up at the descending foot. Her shield was cracked and her magic nearly exhausted. There were still so many wounded people behind her that, at this point, even she did not know where they could retreat.

Just then, the wind in the valley vanished.

It did not weaken. It stopped completely. Blades of grass that had been swept into the air dropped straight to the ground, and the drifting dust quickly settled. For an instant, even the monsters’ crackling seemed to grow quieter.

The captain froze slightly. A Succubus beside her looked up first.

"In the sky..."

The clouds above the valley were slowly parting, allowing sunlight to shine through the opening onto a woman standing in midair.

Meira’s long golden hair drifted gently around her, though there was no wind anywhere in the valley. A simple white dress hugged her mature figure, its hem stirring among streams of green, blue, red, white, and violet energy circling her like living ribbons. Strangely, none of the elements clashed with the others.

The captain’s eyes widened.

"Meira?"

Someone behind her recognized the figure as well.

"The Elemental Lord..."

Meira did not respond. Her gaze slowly swept across the battlefield, taking in the wounded, the broken wall, the bodies that had yet to be carried away, and the hundreds of monsters still surging toward the outpost.

Her usual smile had vanished completely.

Meira slowly raised a hand, and the ground throughout the valley trembled faintly. The shaking was nothing like the tremors caused by the giant monster’s steps, but what followed astonished the Succubus below even more.

Countless green shoots emerged at once from the abandoned fields and began to grow. Within seconds, the tiny sprouts had become vines as thick as arms. They kept swelling until they resembled enormous snakes slithering beneath the ground.

A monster near the defensive line had just turned its head when a wooden spike shot upward through its chest and destroyed the core inside. Then came a second, a third, and dozens more.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Almost instantly, the entire field became a forest of thorns.

What astonished everyone further was that the vines never attacked the Succubus. They slipped past the wounded, avoided every surviving wall and structure, then turned into sharp spears whenever they reached a monster, piercing its core with unerring accuracy.

The flying monsters tried to climb higher, but a crushing pressure of wind descended from above.

Boom!

Dozens of bodies slammed into the ground. A ring of red fire erupted beneath them a moment later.

In less than a minute, most of the battlefield had fallen silent.

The Succubus below nearly forgot they were still holding weapons. One slowly lowered her bow, her voice full of disbelief.

"That’s... it?"

"Not yet."

The captain was still staring at the largest monster.

Meira’s vines had barely wrapped around its legs when the waves of energy surrounding its black armor ground them to pieces. The creature stopped. The white bone ring on its head slowly turned toward the sky, while the reddish-purple core at its center began to contract, compressing an immense amount of energy into a single point.

The captain’s expression changed.

"Get out of the way!"

She did not need to warn them. Every Succubus in the valley could feel the terrifying energy gathering there. If that attack struck, it would destroy more than the defensive line. The outpost behind it might not survive either.

Only then did Meira look directly at the monster.

She tilted her head slightly and raised one finger.

The opening in the clouds quickly darkened, and the air grew heavy. Wind returned, but instead of blowing across the ground, every current was drawn upward, pulling dark clouds from all directions to gather above the valley.

Boom!

Lightning struck a nearby mountain peak, followed by a second bolt, then a third. Within a few breaths, the entire area lay beneath a sea of storm clouds. Static made the hair of the Succubus below rise slightly, while their metal equipment vibrated without pause.

Meira still held up only one finger.

High among the clouds, hundreds of lightning bolts began converging from different directions. Gradually, they formed the head, body, and wings of a gigantic bird made of lightning. Its wings spread so wide they nearly covered the sky above the valley, and every feather looked like a bolt continually breaking apart and forming again.

At the same time, the monster below finished gathering its energy. Its reddish-purple core glowed so brightly it was nearly white.

Meira lowered her finger.

"Go."